Lower Spotify's Premium subscription prices for Bulgaria

Spotify is a free software which allows you to listen to your favorite songs, albums, and podcasts! You can create your own playlists or discover more via "Your Daily Mix"The software was launched October 2008 and is now one of the world leaders in terms of music streaming software. They offer a PC/MAC/LINUX edition as well as a phone app both for Android and iOS. The difference being the following:On the computer variant of the software, you are allowed to control the music you listen to as you wish. You can skip songs and play the exact song you desire from any album.For the price of that, you get an ad every few songs.On the mobile app, however, you are not allowed to select the songs you wish to play. You are only allowed to "shuffle play" albums and skip just a few songs per day with a set limit of skips. This is Spotify's method of promoting more people to subscribe to their monthly "Spotify Premium" subscription.

The subscription is offered at the regular price of €4.99per month for Bulgaria.

Let's now talk about Spotify's end consumers in Bulgaria - teenagers and young adults. (And the expenses of living here)

Most of the older generations are not aware of Spotify and music streaming and only listen to music on the Radio or TV Channels. Some even pirate and download the music they want to listen to.Spotify is left with the primary consumer base of teens aged between 13-18 and young adults aged 18-25. Finding a job as a teen is very difficult in Bulgaria because of the harsh regulations business owners have been put up with. You're also only allowed to work once you are 16 years old and only up to 4 hours per day with half the minimum salary of an adult.Young adults are usually busy completing their education and have no time for work. Most of their money goes into paying tuitions either ways.

The minimal salary in Bulgaria (for adults) currently is €225 per month. The average salary which most people put up with is about €457. Most of that income goes into expenses such as taxes, bills, and food.The majority of people in Bulgaria cannot afford many extras in their lives. We are commonly forced to find cheaper alternatives to everything and to save up at any given moment. What that also means is that we are basically forced to pirate due to the comparatively high prices.Bulgaria has one of the lowest monthly salaries in the Europian Union while at the same time having the most expensive food products in the EU. Quite unfair.

Now let's compare Bulgaria with another European Union member - such as Germany. The German average monthly salary is about €3,730. That is 8 times the average monthly salary to Bulgaria. How much is their Spotify Premium subscription per month you ask? It's €9.99 per month.This is not completely fair, is it? Bulgarians have to pay half the price of Germany's monthly Premium subscription all while having incomes 8 times lower than the average German?

This petition's only goal is simple - Lowering the monthly Spotify Premium subscription price for Bulgaria so it becomes affordable to the majority of the end consumers and therefore decreasing music piracy.

I am completely aware of Spotify's current issues with piracy and modified/hacked versions of their mobile app which allows users to use Premium features for free.I think this petition's success would ONLY be a BENEFIT to Spotify as they would actually receive income from the people who use their Premium features.

I do understand that in the end, Spotify will not be receiving a lot of money through their monthly subscriptions in Bulgaria compared to other countries, however, I deeply believe that receiving a small amount of money is still more beneficial to Spotify compared to people just hacking their software over and over again, using Spotify as a gate to free and pirated music.

If this petition, however, fails people will most likely continue finding ways to pirate their way to music which, of course, is not only unfair towards the work and effort artists put into their songs but also to the work of the people who develop Spotify actively.

Many of us, Bulgarians do love Spotify and we do want to support it! We hope Spotify's CEO, Daniel Ek also show a bit of love for our country and makes it available for us, too to support our favorite artists through the Spotify platform.